1. Field of the Invention
This invention lies in the field of the monitoring of many different kinds of articles such as tools, art objects, coins, golf equipment, etc., for convenience and without limitation the invention will be described in terms of apparatus to be used in conjunction with a golf club bag, and a selected plurality of golf clubs, so that electronic circuits can monitor the presence or absence of a golf club from any one of the selected receptacles into which the clubs are inserted inside of the bag. The purpose of this invention is to inform the player as he moves from hole to hole along the golf course, that he has placed each of the clubs in their proper receptacle and that none are missing from the plurality of selected receptacles into which they would normally be inserted.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art there are a number of different ways taught for monitoring the presence or absence of golf clubs from a golf bag. Of course, one of the simplest is just to visually monitor the presence of a club shaft in each of a selected group of openings in a cover plate over the top of the golf bag. Unfortunately, the heads of the clubs are much larger than the shafts and therefore, can often make it difficult for the player to rapidly visually monitor the golf bag. Consequently, it appears that a sensor of some sort is required, associated with each of the openings through which the golf club shaft is inserted into the bag. Thus, each one of the selected clubs can be continuously monitored as to their presence or absence from the bag.
Of course, each player has his own way of handling his clubs and his bag, and he may not be satisfied with a simple on-off switch associated with each of the receptacles into which the shaft of the clubs are inserted and providing an alarm which sounds whenever one or more of the clubs are withdrawn from the bag and the sensors do not sense a corresponding club shaft in their vicinity. Therefore, it becomes desirable to provide a suitable logic mechanism so that the player can, in effect, program his monitoring system so that it will operate in a selected way under selected conditions and vice versa. The present invention is adapted to provide this type of operation.